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Centre News

July 2015 - Universal Periodic Review Consultations

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), in partnership with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), as Ireland’s national human rights institution, is hosting a series of human rights consultations around Ireland. This is an opportunity for you to have your voice heard and share information about human rights issues on the ground in Ireland.
Your voice can help to influence the outcome of the UPR. Read more (PDF flyer) and join us at one of our consultations:

The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill entered committee stage yesterday (Thursday, 18 June, 2015) and came one step closer to becoming law. Over four hundred proposed amendments were motioned and debated by the Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. A number of civil society organisations in Ireland felt that the Select Committee could have gone further to more fully secure the rights of older citizens and those with disabilities.

Professor Gerard Quinn, Director at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP) at NUI Galway, stated that: âOur Centre has joined with a coalition of over 15 organisations representing people with disabilities and their families, older persons, mental health service users, and health professionals, to contribute to the development of the Bill. The coalition is pleased with the strong public consultation of the Department of Justice and Equality in the development of the Bill. But we remain concerned that the Department may have missed an opportunity to fully harmonise the Bill with current human rights standards.â

Sarah Lennon from Inclusion Ireland stated that: âWe are pleased overall with the commitment of the Department of Justice and the Justice committee to making this law responsive to the needs of Irish citizens. The sheer number of amendments reflected the extensive consultation with civil society organisations representing experts through experience in the development of the Bill. We want to continue working with the Department to create robust mechanisms truly harmonise the Bill with international human rights standards.â

Dr Eilionóir Flynn, the Deputy Director of the CDLP stated that: ’The repeal of the âwards of courtâ system has been a long time coming. The Ministry for Justice has rightly consigned the 1871 Lunacy Regulation Act to the dustbin of history. But there is a risk that residues of the old-style paternalism have remained. In particular, the Bill places too much emphasis on a person’s mental capacity. We don’t want a situation where people with disabilities and older persons are forced to get a mental capacity assessment to enter into support agreements under the Bill. Under the Bill a person will be ineligible to appoint an assistant for a decision if the person is seen to lack mental capacity. Yet the whole point of the Bill was to provide support arrangements precisely for people who would otherwise fail outdated and discriminatory mental capacity assessments. This shift is required under international human rights law. The UN Committee on the rights of Persons with Disabilities has been clear: mental capacity assessments must go.â

Jim Walsh, of the Irish Advocacy Network, expressed concern that: âAssessing capacity will become the focus rather than understanding and facilitating individual support needs. Statutory bodies concerned with training care staff, we fear, will focus on how to question someone’s capacity rather than helping staff to address social support needs and support a person’s decision making.â

Some mental health advocates are also concerned that the new advanced healthcare directives will be useful for physical health problems but will apply unequally to mental health service users. Fiona Walsh of Tallaght Trialogue commented that: âPhysical health and mental health issues must be given equal respect. Under the current Bill, not even a government minister could make an Advance Healthcare Directive which would be respected in the event of a mental health crises that leads to involuntary treatment under mental health law.â

Another area of concern related to informal decision-making powers. The term 'informal decision-maker' was removed in yesterday’s committee stage. However, advocates remain concerned that some of the troubling aspects of the provisions remain in place.

Tina Leonard, Head of Advocacy and Public Affairs at The Alzheimer Society of Ireland, said: âThe Minister for Justice rightly removed some of the excessive power inadvertently granted to informal supporters of people who believed that the person they were supporting lacked mental capacity. That provision would have allowed, for example, an older person to be placed in a home against their wishes simply because their adult child 'believed that the person lacked mental capacity'. Instead, we need to secure people’s dignity to take risks. But although the language has changed after the Minister’s recent amendments, we are concerned that some of these 'informal powers' remain in place. It is not enough to simply remove the term 'informal decision–maker' if the excessive powers remain the same.â

Professor Quinn concluded: âAll of us are shaped by the balance of protection and autonomy in law. The legal requirement to wear seatbelts is an example showing where autonomy ends and public protection begins. But the current Bill seems to say that for people with disabilities and older people, different rules apply in striking that balance. We need to move beyond 'special laws' for people with disabilities, just as we’re moving away from 'special schools' and 'special day programs'. True integration requires a commitment to equality.â

May 2015 - CDLP host coffee morning in aid of the disabled victims of the Nepal earthquake

The Centre for Disability Law and Policy has hosted many master's students from Nepal over recent years with support of the Soros Opens Society Foundation. They all live in Nepal and have survived. Most of them work with disability organisations and report severe difficulties for people with disabilities in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. The monies raised by this coffee morning will go directly to the disability groups they work with in order to show solidarity and alleviate at least some of the worst effects of the quake. Of especial importance now is to make sure the voice of people with disabilities is listened to as Nepal struggles to re-build a more inclusive society and economy.

April 2015 - EU Access to Justice - Ireland Country Report launch

The Centre will launch a Country Report on Ireland as part of an EU-funded project on Access to Justice for Children with Mental Disabilities, in Dublin on 23 April 2015. See this flyer (
PDF /
Word) for further details. To register to attend, please RSVP to
info.cdlpnuigalway.ie. You can also download the report in
PDF and
Word versions.

April 2015 - Haifa Conference: CDLP to co-host with Council of Europe and Haifa University a conference on Independent Living and Supported Decision-Making

The CDLP will be co-host in May 2015 to a conference on independent living and supported decision-making in Haifa, Israel. Director Gerard Quinn says: âThis event focuses on all the citizens of Israel whether Druze, Beduin, Palestinian or Jewish to realise the twin goals of community living and supported decision-making. It brings together a range of global thinkers and actors to inform domestic policy reform for all inhabitants of Israel. In its own way it helps build peace by connecting with all communities on issues that affect all persons and families.â See programme
here.

March 2015 - CDLP leads coalition of NGOs to call for urgent reform of Irish legal capacity law

Today, on the eighth anniversary of Ireland's signature of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the CDLP, in conjunction with 17 NGOs in the fields of disability, mental health and ageing, call on the Irish government to repeal the Regulation of Lunacy (Ireland) Act 1871 and immediately bring the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill 2013 to Committee stage in the Dail. See this
press release for further information.

March 2015 - Article: 'Ireland must ratify UN Convention on Rights of People with Disabilities '

Meredith Raley, a PhD candidate at the CDLP, co-authored a piece with Gary Lee from the Centre for Independent Living on the need for Ireland to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities in today's (30 March 2015)
Irish Times.

March 2015 - Likando Kalaluka appointed as Attorney General of Zambia

Likando Kalaluka, a graduate of the first ever class of the LLM in International and Comparative Disability Law and Policy in 2012, has been appointed as the Attorney General of Zambia. Pictured below is Mr. Likando Kalaluka (right), being sworn in as Attorney General of Zambia by Republican President of Zambia, Mr. Edgar Lungu.

February 2015 - CDLP success in Irish Research Council 'New Foundations' Awards Scheme

The research team at the CDLP have successfully obtained a grant to host a series of events to explore the options of piloting a Community Café that employs people with disabilities for the new ILAS (
Institute for Lifecourse and Society) building at NUI Galway.

In 2014, the Institute for Lifecourse and Society (ILAS) opened. The building is intended as a community space and has the capacity to feature a café that caters for staff, students and visitors.

The aim of this project is to work with community partner,
EmployAblity Galway, to organize a series of events. During these, students, staff and community partners will engage and together explore options to initiate the setting up of a café that employs and is run by people with disabilities. The focus will be on social innovation and how to set up a social enterprise.

December 2014 - Major ERC funding success for Dr. Eilionóir Flynn and CDLP

Dr. Eilionóir Flynn has been approved by the European Research Council (ERC) almost €1m in funding for her groundbreaking VOICES project. VOICES aims to make visible the experiences of people with disabilities who have been denied legal capacity.

Dr Flynn is the youngest of the ERC Starter grantees this year and amongst nine in Ireland to win a total of €11m in funding under these prestigious awards. Her award of almost €1m in funding for the ground-breaking VOICES project will run for three and a half years.

The VOICES project aims to make visible the experiences of people with disabilities who have been denied legal capacity. It will involve a series of workshops where people with this lived experience will be paired with social and legal scholars to develop their narratives, and construct critical responses to these narratives, for inclusion in an edited collection at the end of the project. Particular themes to be addressed include criminal responsibility, consent, and contract law.

Dr Flynn said "The VOICES project will take a radical approach to develop new law reform ideas based on the concept of âuniversal legal capacityâ, a basic human freedom to make one’s own decisions and have them respected by law. People with disabilities will be supported in this project by legal and social science scholars to develop personal narratives about their experiences in exercising, or being denied, legal capacity. This is important because many people with disabilities, especially people with intellectual, psycho-social and other cognitive disabilities, have been denied this fundamental right – informally, in the private sphere, and formally, in the public sphere through states’ laws and policies."

December 2014 - CDLP Director honoured in US with Senator Harkin

Professor Gerard Quinn was honoured alongside Senator Tom Harkin by the United States International Council on Disabilities in recognition of his work in the field of international and comparative disability law and policy. The ceremony took place in Washington on the eve of the international day of people with disabilities, December 2nd 2014. Download
Professor’s Quinn’s speech here. For more info:
http://www.usicd.org/template/index.cfm

Caption: Back row: US Senator Tom Harkin with Professor Ger Quinn, Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy.
Front row: Marca Bristo, former chair of the US National Council on Disability and outgoing chair of the US International Council on Disability; Her Excellency Anne Anderson, Ambassador of Ireland to the US

December 2014 - Launch of groundbreaking book on Genetic Discrimination

MEP Marian Harkin and members of the judiciary, as well as leading figures from the areas of disability and genetics joined on Friday night, 12th December, at the European Commission Representation to celebrate the launch of Genetic Discrimination – Transatlantic perspectives on the case for a European-level legal response. The book is edited by Professor Gerard Quinn, CDLP alumna Dr Aisling de Paor (DCU) and Professor Peter Blanck (Burton Blatt Institute, Syracuse University, USA) and focuses particularly on the legislative and policy framework in the European Union emphasising gaps in protection and the scope for specific legislative action in the area of genetic discrimination. Download
Professor’s Quinn’s speech here.

December 2014 - CDLP First Official Engagement for the New Special Rapporteur on Disability

Catalina Devandas with staff and students of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy

November 2014 - Orientation Day at the new Institute for Lifecourse and Society

Staff and students of the new Institute for Lifecourse and Society gathered for an orientation day at its newly opened building in the north campus in November 2014. The formal launch of the Institute building will take place in early 2015.

November 2014 - Leading Chinese disability advocate Xie Bin visits the Centre for a seminar and meeting with staff and students